Wayne talks on new Flaming Lips album

Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips has spoken to VH1 about the band’s new album, ‘At War With The Mystics’, which is set for a release early next year. He revealed that the follow-up to 2002’s brilliant ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’ is more political than their previous work. Coyne said: “I don’t think you could be making any art in the atmosphere that we’re in now – with the war and the different ways people feel about the Bush administration and all that – without having some things that sort of, not address that specifically, but address this whole idea of what you do with power.”

He continued: “When is the time to have mercy? And when is the time to be aggressive? I think we have some things on the record that I hope will stand the test of time long after this war is over and all these young guys have come home.”

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He also spoke to the music channel about upcoming Flaming Lips film ‘Christmas On Mars’, which is also due for release next year after several years of work. Coyne said “The way that I work is (not) that much different from the way I would do a painting or even the way that we record our music a lot of the time. We go in and we have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for things that we want to happen and sort of try to shape them up. But if we’re lucky, something emerges that’s really better than what we intended and we’ll go with that. If we’re lucky, ‘Christmas on Mars’ will continue to do that.”

He added: “We’ll have built the sets and have actors there, and of course there’ll be things for them to say and all that, but something marvellous will happen and we’ll be able to incorporate that into the idea of what we wanted to do and it will be better and more expressive and more communicative and more emotional – all those things that I think all artists intend to do.”